


at the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping ( I fly  To the lone vale we loved )

by wearealltalesintheend



Series: to a flat world of changing lights and noise [6]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Alice in Wonderland References, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Road Trips, Todd wants To Believe, and Farah knows everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 14:03:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10362072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearealltalesintheend/pseuds/wearealltalesintheend
Summary: "In those late hours, he does a lot of thinking. Maybe it's the false sense of being alone, maybe it's the reassurance of the cover of darkness to keep his secrets from spilling into daylight,  or maybe it's just what nights were made to do.And like all lonely and sad people, Todd turns on the radio, lets the music softly fill in the background, chase away the unnerving silence. But it hasn't always been like this, he used to, not like, but tolerate the quiet. Maybe, because it used to be always so loud inside his head, the quietness was a rare reprive."or, the road so far, traveling becomes a game of waiting, and Todd finds solace in the night hours.





	

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY, SO, IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME I KNOW AND I'M SORRY
> 
> but, that being said, I have no recolection of actually writing half of this, honestly, I'm still not sure if this isn't some halucination caused by caffeine overdose or some fever dream, so, any mistakes I'm blaming on my half conscious state.
> 
> Anyway, the title was taken from the poem _At The Mid Hour Of Night_ by Thomas Moore. But I'm not saying this chapter was somehow weirdly inspired by the Rolling Stones song _Sympathy for the Devil_ , but it kind of is.
> 
>  
> 
> Again, I know shit about how the american road system works.
> 
>  
> 
> _But, on with the show._

The devil is in the details.

 

Sometimes Todd wonders.

 

Mostly, it happens at night, when he can hear everyone's breath even out, heads resting against car windows. They don't dare stop to sleep anymore, they just rotate shifts driving, and Todd tries to get the late nights.

 

Mostly, he likes it because it's kind of peaceful, the moon and the stars and the empty roads. Every once in a while another car will pass by, inside tired people with tired eyes, a fleeting moment of sympathy and camaradery.

 

It's one of those nights, clear sky above, clear road below their tires. Todd looks at his watch, 3:00am, _the devil's hour._ Fitting, he figures.

 

( _when he was a kid, small and skinny and naive, Todd had been terrified of the dark. There was something about the shadows on his bedroom, the creaking of his closet, the space under his bed, that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up and a shiver creep up his spine )_

In those late hours, he does a lot of thinking. Maybe it's the false sense of being alone, maybe it's the reassurance of the cover of darkness to keep his secrets from spilling into daylight,  or maybe it's just what nights were made to do.

And like all lonely and sad people, Todd turns on the radio, lets the music softly fill in the background, chase away the unnerving silence. But it hasn't always been like this, he used to, not _like,_ but tolerate the quiet. Maybe, because it used to be always so loud inside his head, the quietness was a rare reprive.

Now, though. Now the silence is loudest. It's an ache and it's longing, and it's painful and bitter, and it's regrets and what ifs and what could have beens. It's a person shaped hole at his side, it's words on the tip of his tongue, it's the empty spaces in conversations, it's the tiptoeing and it's the dancing around words.

Mostly, it's regretting. Todd regrets a lot of things, his list goes on and on forever, he isn't sure where it begins or where it ends. Maybe, it just is, with no beginning and no ending; maybe it belongs to him since birth or even before. Maybe it's fate, but it doesn't really matter, it's a part of him, it shapes who he is now, and that's all that is to it.

And the saddest thing about it is that he doesn't know how to fix any of it. Things snowballed out of his control, now he is left buried alive under its weight. There are so few things he can mend, and even those will never be the same. Entropy and all.

_( Amanda, for one, had never feared the dark. Todd used to think it was because she was a source of light herself; she didn't need flashlights or candles because she had a sun of her own bursting in her soul )_

He can see now, the stupidity of his idea. Lottery tickets can't fix shit, at least not the stuff that matters. A voice in his head, sounding suspiciously like Dirk, says _band-aids don't fix bullet holes,_ and sure, Todd can see the truth in that, but he refuses to quote a Taylor Swift song.

And thinking about Dirk is another rabbit hole of its own. If Todd isn't careful, he starts falling and falling and falling; there is no stopping. _Curiouser and curiouser,_ right?

And the devil is in the details, it's the simplest of things that sets him off, sometimes. He will see someone in a yellow anything and his mind will circle back to the ridiculous man, or he will be talking with someone and almost turn around, words dripping from his lips, or he will think _Dirk would have loved this_. And he hates it, _loathes_ it, because it sounds a lot like when his aunt died and everyone kept messing up the verb tenses, and he is not going down  that line of thinking.

 

Except, he does sometimes, on the bad nights, after they hit yet another wrong facility and it's all just so depressing. He and Farah trade a look that says _what if,_ and then he won't be able to think of anything else.

 

It's awful, and it makes him sick. It chills him and makes his hands shake, his head spins and his vision blurs.

 

But in the good days, the days when they are on the road, windows down, wind in his hair, when there is a humming energy, _hope,_ spelled in everything they do; those days are better but not _good._ Because there is still an ache festering inside him, his chest is still too tight to breathe.

 

Mostly, he thinks _why didn't I tell him?_

 

_( as an adult Todd understands why humanity so often fears the dark. It's the most common fear because mostly it's not about the dark at all. It was about the unknown. It was about not knowing what was there. It was about not knowing and wondering and wondering and wondering and )_

 

Todd could find a lot of reasons of why he never told Dirk, he has them all rehearsed in his mind. He recites them all to himself every night, it says _this is why, here, look, there was nothing I could do._

 

After all, he's good at lying.

 

"How long until we leave Wyoming?"

 

Farah's voice rings clear in the car, startles Todd and fades away with the midnight wind. He hasn't noticed the her waking up in the passenger seat.

 

"I'm not sure, a day maybe?" Todd sighs, "we are hitting Nebraska or South Dakota?"

 

She has her gaze trained on their battered map, eyes scanning the roads and interstates, and he can almost see the wheels turning in her head as she weights and plans and strategizes, "Nebraska. We can get to Iowa faster that way."

 

He doesn't mention the two Idaho facilities, or the Wyoming one, he doesn't have to. The failures are written on the lines of both of their faces, drawn in the hunch of their shoulders, told in unsaid conversations.

 

"Do you think," Farah starts slowly, cuts herself off, and Todd can feel her eyes burning holes on the side of his head, "I mean, the Universe or whatever it is, it's looking out for him right?"

 

"Yeah, something like that." He tells her because that's what he has to believe, "and he knows we are coming."

 

Farah nods, smiles and it's not as tight and thin as it was two days ago, so Todd counts it as a win. For a minute there is silence again, but her smile turns into a smirk and then-

 

"So, you and Dirk, uh?"

 

Todd groans, knows he is in for the ride, "no, no, don't even start-"

 

She says nothing, but the smirk softens into a grin and her gaze remains fixed steadly on him, and Todd fidgets, finds himself blurting out, "do you think he knows?"

 

"That you love him?" Farah says gently, more of a statement than a question, and he nods, eyes trained on the road ahead, "He knows you care, you _are_ his best friend after all, and that's what matters." And Todd agrees, he understands what she means, he understands _he's not dying thinking he is alone,_ "But I guess you'll just have to tell him the rest when we find him."

 

Todd nods again, looks at the rearview mirror to check on Amanda and Vogle, sleeping soundly leaning on each other in the back seat. They look peaceful and young, and Todd feels the pang of sorrow and guilty on his chest, because they shouldn't have been dragged into this.

 

He shakes his head, there is nothing to do about it now, and turns his head to look at Farah, "hey, you should get some rest, it'll be morning soon and there is no chance in hell I'm letting one of these two take the wheel."

 

She laughs quietly, rests her head against the window, "well, I can't argue with that," a pause, "good night, Todd."

 

"Good night, Farah."

 

( _Todd remembers Amanda had never been afraid of the dark, not after her fourth or fifth birthday anyway, and as he watches her bounce excitedly, grin splitting her face, at the prospect of an adventure, or listens to her voicemail before venturing out on the streets by herself, or catches sight of the leather jacket on her shoulders; he understands )_

It's quiet in the car, it's quiet outside. There is a chill in the air, the coolness that only midnight brings, and althought it approaches 4am, Todd shivers.

 

Maybe, it's the helplessness of their situations, or maybe it's because the book is all kinds of nonsense Dirk would have loved, _( why is a raven like a writing desk? ),_ but if he is going with _Alice in Wonderland_ metaphors, he might as well go and believe six impossible things before breakfast.

 

Well, not _six,_ because six is a bit of a stretch, but he can do like, three. That's half of it, it counts for something, right? For exemple, number one: he sort of believes in the universe force-thing-whatever now.

 

He also believes they can pull this whole rescue thing off, and if that isn't the craziest thing to believe in, he is not sure what is.

 

That's two things already.

 

And the third? Well, he is not sure about the third yet, you see, he kind of needs to ask someone else first, and he'd rather not go and _hope._

 

It's almost five in the morning, soon the sun will be rising in the horizon, sunshine warming up the car, and everyone will begin to stir.

 

But it's still dark outside, and the devil is in the details, so it's still a long way until breakfast and Todd still has time.

 

The devil is in the details.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yo, you got to the end! Yay! 
> 
> Now, how about leaving a kudo or maybe a nice review? I also accept flying owls and fire messages. Notes in a bottle dropped on the middle of the ocean are unfortunetely not accepted.
> 
> But, if you already wrote your comment and now is left with a useless bottle in a boat, you can always reach me on [my tumblr](http://wearealltalesintheend.tumblr.com/).
> 
> And hey? Thanks.


End file.
